Intercultural learning in Nursing on the Move prof. dr. Dieter - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Health Care Communication in Intercultural settings: from challenge to success

Intercultural learning in “Nursing on the Move”

• prof. dr. Dieter Vermandere - Universiteit Antwerpen

Main question for this session:

• “how is intercultural

learning trained in NOM”? structure of the talk:

• explicitating the
• background notions

intercultural training: mix of ingredients

• intercultural training in NOM:
• concepts used
• training tasks and goals

1 | Background notions

• Contemporary societies face the challenge of a growing

diversity and heterogeneity of their population.

• - Consequently, the traditional cross-cultural training that

typically focused on knowledge of specific characteristics

• f a particular (foreign) “national culture” is no longer

sufficient.

• these concepts are problematic
• the NOM framework works with new concepts that underlie

the intercultural training component

1.1 | the concept of “culture”

• traditional notions relate to “national culture” as a fixed set of values and

beliefs (= “product”) where “culture” has these characteristics:

• (see approaches like Hofstede, Trompenaers and others):
• ฀ homogeneous:

culture implies “national” unity and homogeneity

• ฀ holistic: culture determines everything
• ฀ exclusive:

culture defines and therefore excludes

• ฀ etiquette:

culture is about surface behavior

• ฀ stable:

culture does not change

contemporary research focuses more on the

• pen or dynamic

interpretation of “culture” (= “process”) , where culture is understood as being:

▶︐ heterogeneous: there are different views within one “culture” (counter-culture) ▶︐ stratified: culture is layered: it’s a matter of degree ▶︐ specific: people can belong to different (sub)cultures ▶︐ meaningful:cultural behavior is communication = has communicative intent ▶︐ changing: cultures change as new problems require new solutions

=> this dynamic, flexible or open interpretation of culture as a

• “process”

makes it more difficult for training purposes, as there is no “fixed set” of categorial notions to work with

1.2 | “superdiversity”

1⃣ “national culture” is problematic, as cities are more “superdiverse” than ever before:

big cities are

• majority-minority cities = the majority of their population is a

multitude of minorities

2⃣ there is no uniformity within the minorities:

▶︐ migrants from different areas (continents, countries, regions, …) ▶︐ migrants with different speeds (1st generation / 2nd / 3d / …) ▶︐ migrants with very different backgrounds (educated / poorly educated …) and different needs

1.2 | “superdiversity”

3

• ⃣ there is much less uniformity within the majority reacting on these

minorities: ▶︐ different (sometimes opposing) social divides:

• regional differences
• political preferences
• gender related preferences
• religious orientations
• social differences

=> this complex situation of cultural

• “fluidity” makes it very difficult to

“predict” cultural behavior based on “national cultural identity”

1.3 | “acculturation”

1⃣ previous trainings tended to focus on one-way “cross-cultural” comparisons:

e.g. “gift-giving” among the Chinese community vs. the American community => with very little information about how these two communities interact when they meet

2⃣ current trainings focus on “inter-cultural interaction”: acculturation is a two-way process

how to negotiate with different people from very different backgrounds, who are “new arrivals” in a host country who have to undergo acculturation into the host culture, and where the “host” also has to undergo acculturation to the new arrivals

• = continuous process of “two-way socialisation”

These concepts or notions open up new ways of training: different goals,

• different methods => flexibility and dynamism are key

2 | Intercultural training

1⃣ Intercultural training used to focus extensively on “knowledge” of specific regions, areas, cultural habits etc.

• e.g. Hofstede’s 6 dimensions, Trompenaers 9 dimensions, …

2⃣ contemporary intercultural training programmes are designed in a layered fashion:

▶︐ “knowledge”: of social processes and characteristics, cultural beliefs & habits, specific knowledge (medical …) ▶︐ “attitudes”: tolerance of ambiguity, openness, curiosity, behavioral flexibility, resilience, goal orientation, non- judgementalness ▶︐ “skills”: “soft skills” of interpreting and relating, building rapport, communication and interaction, cultural sensitivity 3⃣ meta-cognitive goal related to “awareness raising”: critical awareness of own behavior and perspectives related to acculturation

3 | Intercultural training in NOM

1︐⃣ using a flexible and dynamic interpretation of “culture” as “preferential ways of information exchange” thereby focusing on two

• way communicative

interaction

2︐⃣ focus on communicative skills: presupposes an adequate level of linguistic

• proficiency

3︐⃣ communicative skills trained in actual context goals: learning to negotiate and interact efficiently

4︐⃣ how is this done? knowledge:

• 25 topics were identified

skills:

• “intercultural + communication”

the topics are linked to the language modules

• and their specific functions

e.g.

• “history taking” => intercultural communication tips on asking

questions (open ended questions to avoid Yes/No questions to which some patients always answer “Yes”)

5︐

• ⃣ focus on critical awareness (raising) from the

point of view of the nurses: the

• “real life cases”

= complex and challenging scenarios where the

• trainee has to reflect on a number of possible

solutions and evaluate these in a specific context (e.g. a drunk patient)